a conversation

The head waiter stopped by our table.

"Hello, Miss Cynthia." He bowed his head slightly.

"Hi, Miguel," I said. "You're on the night shift today, I see."

I ordered tea and Benjamin ordered coffee. It was already well past midnight, after his three beers and my one glass of wine, and we still had a lot of stories to tell each other. I asked Miguel to bring the bill. After the waiter had left, Ben remarked, "I'm impressed, they know you here."

"I send them business all the time, why shouldn't they? Part of my job," I said as I fished out my credit card from my wallet and placed it on the table.

"You're out of my reach, C," he said, the sadness in his voice evident.

"What do you mean, I'm out of your reach?" I asked, although I knew what he meant.

"Look at you and your achievements, while I'm still a lowly sales clerk. You finished your course, I didn't. The only advancement I made in my life is I'm now a sales clerk for an expensive department store. But I'm so glad for you. And yet I feel guilty."

"Guilty?" I said. "Guilty about what?"

"That maybe I drove you into this situation you're in." He gestured his one hand towards me. "You're shacking up with a married man, despite the fact that he's separated. You deserve more than that, you know?"

"Don't worry about me, Ben. It's not anybody's fault I am with a married man. I chose to do this." I looked at him straight into the eye and said, "Remember, I am master of my fate, I am captain of my soul."

He chuckled. In college, when he was still Danny's "bridge", I would join him and his classmates in digesting their literary assignments in English. That passage from William Ernest Henley's poem Invictus was my favourite.

"I remember what you told me one time when we were still in school." He fidgeted with his lighter as he spoke. "That getting a higher education is your one goal to get out of your family's poverty. I admired your conviction, and to see you actually doing it. I feel so envious and proud of you, at the same time, if it is at all possible to feel that way."

"The only regret I have is that Mother is no longer around for this." I looked away. Miguel came by with our tea and coffee and picked up my credit card.

"Well, I still feel guilty," Benjamin said. "It makes me think that it was I who broke you. It hurts me, C, it really does."

"Well, you did break my heart, you know," I said, but smiling. "But that was a long time ago. I've moved on, you've moved on. What happened after that has nothing to do with you. It's all my own doing." I searched for emotion in his face, but the sparkle in his eyes, no matter how sad he said he was, distracted me and I lost my trend of thought. I hesitated a bit before I said, "The way things are now is just fine with me, I assure you." I patted his hand and winked at him.

"You know, I still believe that if we're really meant for each other, it would happen even if we're seventy."

"Seventy? That's too old!"

He looked at me. A smile formed in the corner his lips.

"I don't want to be that old. I'd be all wrinkly and droopy by then!" It was at this point when Miguel came back with the bill.

"We won't be able to have sex by then!" The words poured out of my mouth in jest. I saw the shock in his face, the cheeks already red from the three beers he already had. Miguel smiled discreetly and hurriedly left.

I waved my hand in a dismissive gesture with a large grin. "I'm kidding."